The Kiwanis Blog

• Partnering to feed the hungry

  May 22, 2013

  

  Hunger is an often invisible community tragedy. But for the past 15 years, the Manhattan, Kansas, Kiwanis Club has had a very visible connection to a food network that feeds thousands of families.

  Carroll Hackbart has been volunteering with the Flint Hills Breadbasket since the club took on the project. “I don’t like to see perfectly good food go to waste, especially when there are people that have a need for it,” he says.

  The ...

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• On a mission to build

  May 15, 2013

   

  Fifty years ago, more than 200 Kiwanians and guests from North America boarded planes to make history. The previous year, 1962, Kiwanis opened the door to establishing clubs outside the United States and Canada, and a “European Mission” was organized to officially welcome new clubs in three Continental cities: Vienna, Austria; Basel, Switzerland and Brussels, Belgium.

  This year, Kiwanis celebrates the 50th anniversary of Kiwanis in Europe. The first European club, the Kiwanis Club ...

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• Transformational teamwork

  May 15, 2013

  

  Perseverance and community networking allowed one Canadian Kiwanis club to contribute funding toward the construction of a recreational center in their community. Supporting the project soon became a route to not only the community’s transformation, but also the club’s.

  After seven years of dedicated fundraising, the Kiwanis Club of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, fulfilled a CAD $100,000 commitment toward the construction of the Garcelon Civic Centre. The civic center is intended to become a recreational, ...

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• Charitable cars drive intercontinental change

  May 08, 2013

  

  The passion two Swiss Kiwanians share for classic cars has been harnessed to fundraise thousands of dollars for children in the African nation of Zimbabwe.

  The members’ leadership allowed the Kiwanis Club of Weinfelden, Switzerland, to create and host one of the largest car shows in eastern Switzerland. Hosted first in 2009, then 2011, the second biennial Charity Classic showcased more than 60 vehicles on a parade through the canton of Thurgau.

  Motivated by a ...

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• Funding fun

  April 24, 2013

  

  Some elbow grease and Kiwanis funds are helping the Island of Hawaii YMCA reach even more children this year.

  Contacted by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation because of its community involvement, the Kiwanis Club of East Hawaii was informed that the foundation can award nonprofit organizations a US$10,000 check if they execute a project for another nonprofit organization supporting children in the community. The Weinberg Foundation aims to assist financially disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals ...

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• Painting pleasure

  April 17, 2013

  

  Joyce Mesrobian often takes in the wooded trails, around the ponds and through the prairie on the campus of the retirement center where she lives, and the Lindenhurst-the Lakes Area, Illinois, Kiwanian felt saddened that many fellow residents did not have such mobility.

  Aiming to bring some of the beautifully landscaped outdoors in, Mesrobian began searching for someone to paint nature scenes on a 175-foot bare wall in the tunnel between the independent living building ...

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• Doll delight

  April 10, 2013

  

  Kiwanis clubs around the world make dolls for children in hospitals. Few are likely prepared to ship them halfway across the globe. Despite the financial cost associated with their passion, Kiwanis-family members around the Michigan District have shown a multi-year commitment to mailing their colorful dolls to countries around the African continent.

  As a means to build on a partnership program between clubs in sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, one Michigan Kiwanian’s work in ...

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• Puppet presents

  April 03, 2013

  

  To most people, a major earthquake that happened in February 2011 seems like old news. But for residents of Christchurch, New Zealand, particularly the children, normalcy has yet to return. Spring in the town of Christchurch used to mean daffodils and families traversing parks, but since the disaster, it takes more than sunshine to brighten the spirits of preschoolers whose lives were turned upside down.

  Patsy Hill, a member of the Takapuna, New Zealand, Kiwanis ...

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• Village outreach services deliver vaccines to those hardest to reach

  March 29, 2013

  

  World Immunization Week begins April 20, and what better way to participate than by saving or protecting a life through a donation to The Eliminate Project. Just US$1.80 will protect one woman and her future babies. And, millions of women in remote locations of 30 countries still need to be immunized.

  One of the most important ways that UNICEF gets vaccines—including tetanus—to those hardest to reach is through village outreach services. Trained health workers visit ...

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• Finding her strength

  March 29, 2013

  

  Forced by choppy, cold water to abandon the journey toward their appointed rendezvous, Mary Carunchia and her Wilderness Volunteers team rowed to safety on a rocky shore somewhere in the remote regions of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Cold, wet, exhausted and without a working radio, they waited for rescue. Plano, Texas, Kiwanian Carunchia learned a lot about herself through that ordeal. Here’s her story, in her own words.

  It was a very challenging environment. We had ...

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• Adomba's agility

  March 27, 2013

   

  Adomba is a playful four-year-old who loves to ride his tricycle. But he did not always have this ability. Born prematurely in the African nation of Ghana, he moved with his parents to the United States to seek better care and opportunities for him.

  Difficulty in walking independently and frequent falls led him to be referred to Dr. John Delahay for an orthopedic evaluation. Delahay is a well-respected orthopedic surgeon at MedStar Georgetown University ...

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• Q&A with the president & CEO of Goodwill

  March 25, 2013

  

  Interview by Nicholas Drake

  Every 38 seconds of every business day, someone lands a good job with the help of Goodwill Industries International. More than 189,000 people gained employment in 2011 through their participation in Goodwill programs, earning an estimated US$2.95 billion in salaries and wages. In Canada and the United States alone, more than 79 million people donate to Goodwill.

  Kiwanis magazine recently interviewed Goodwill President and CEO Jim Gibbons about the challenges individuals ...

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• Running the race

  March 20, 2013

   

  A love of running is shared by many Kingston, New York, residents. The city has a tight-knit running community with many running clubs. So when one traditional community event took a hiatus, the Kiwanis Club of Kingston jumped in to revitalize and transform it.

  For many years, those runners had the opportunity to run alongside elite athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia at an annual event called the Kingston Classic. In 1981, the classic began ...

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• Puppet pals

  March 20, 2013

  

  For residents of Christchurch, New Zealand, the memories of a February 2011 earthquake remain vivid and frightening. Takapuna, New Zealand, Kiwanian Patsy Hill wanted to remind the children of the South Island community that they are not forgotten; so, she came up with the idea of making tiny teddy bear finger puppets.

  Hill sent the pattern and instructions to Kiwanis magazine to be shared with Kiwanis clubs around the world that are looking for an ...

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• Worms advise: shop grey

  March 18, 2013

  Some families shop at grocery stores that have the freshest produce. Other shoppers prefer stores with the best coupon deals. Thirteen-year-old Alexandra Page has a new option to consider when picking a food market: Which place has the most earth-friendly bags?

  She shares the credit for this discovery with a few slimy, crawly worms.

  Page won the Drury, New Zealand, Kiwanis Club’s science fair by testing the strength and degradability of stores’ plastic bags. Here’s ...

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• A letter from Gerda

  March 13, 2013

  

  The Retrospective section of the March 2013 Kiwanis magazine looked back at the chartering of Europe’s first Kiwanis club—Wien, Austria—in 1963, as observed by a University of Vienna student who served as an interpreter at the historic event. Here is her report of that celebration in a letter to Kiwanis friends in San Benito, Texas.

  From “The Current Issue,” The Kiwanis Magazine, Summer 1963

  By Richard E. Gosswiller, executive editor

  Whoever said the world is ...

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• Disability dreams

  March 13, 2013

  

  The Kiwanis Club of Downtown Springfield, Missouri, has a history of advocating for children with disabilities. In 1937, the club opened the first school in Springfield specifically for children with physical disabilities, supporting it for many years before it was adopted into the public school system. The only “accessible” playground in the community was there … until now.

  Years later, the club entertained the idea of providing a socially and physically inclusive playground in a ...

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• Guinea and IDD: On the road to recovery

  March 11, 2013

  Maternal and neonatal tetanus is not the first target of a Kiwanis global campaign for children. During the 1990s, members and clubs worldwide helped raise and leverage more than US$100 million to virtually eliminate iodine deficiency disorders (IDD), the world’s leading cause of mental disabilities.

  Today, Kiwanis’ Eliminate Project aims to raise US$110 million to virtually eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT). So, when six Kiwanis members traveled to Guinea this past September, they were ...

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• Back by popular demand

  March 06, 2013

  

  It started out as a simple Kiwanis doll project. Members of the Kiwanis Club of Ostrava, Czech Republic, would sew up some blank cloth figures and pass them out to hospitalized children.

  Then, the Kiwanians came up with the idea of asking popular actors and singers to decorate the dolls and print a calendar featuring the results.

  Then, they invited the celebrities to help distribute the dolls. And the kids loved it!

  “We watched the ...

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• When sports hurt

  March 04, 2013

  While there are a multitude of physical and mental benefits for young athletes, perhaps the biggest single pitfall is sports-related injuries.

  According to a 2012 study by Safe Kids Worldwide, a nonprofit network of organizations working to prevent childhood injury, one in three youth athletes involved in team sports are injured seriously enough to miss practice or games. Pulled muscles, overuse injuries, broken bones, dehydration and concussions are among the leading culprits. And no sport ...

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